


Healing

by lusteralliance (orphan_account)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Almost Kiss, Angst, Blood and Gore, Crying, Healing, ITS ALL AWFUL MAN, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Vomiting, at least i like it more, i have so much hw why did i do this, i make linny suffer 24/7 and it makes me feel bad, no true violence but bad wounds, oh well, this is better than the other casphardt i wrote i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-27 00:37:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20751425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/lusteralliance
Summary: No one ever asked if Linhardt was all right. If the bodies or the blood of his friends bothered him, etched themselves into his mind, made themselves impossible to forget.But he was fine.





	Healing

**Author's Note:**

> caspar voice: on god bro we gonna get you some happy

Linhardt's eyes stung as he squeezed them shut; they were dry from concentration and exhaustion, and from staring into the light emanating from his fingertips as they traced the bloody gashes littering Caspar's body.

There was a cool rag over the unconscious man's forehead, and a bandage on his left cheek. Manuela had offered to help the healing process, but Linhardt told her he would take care of Caspar. The others needed her expertise; Ferdinand had broken a leg when his horse was felled and he fell with it, and Bernadetta's fingers were numb and bleeding from her relentless nocking of arrows. 

Caspar was hardy. He would survive; his shoulder had been impaled by a spear, and the rest of him had been pummeled nearly beyond fixing. But Linhardt would fix him. It was the least he could do.

He peeled back his eyelids and focused on his spell once more, and his fingers were trembling as they felt the heat coming from Caspar's wounds, and the blood dripping down the cot he lay on and onto Linhardt's robes. 

It was dark and thick, like chocolate. And Linhardt hated that he thought of the blood that way, as something tasty, appetizing. He lost focus just as Caspar jerked, reopening a nearly sealed wound on his side, and blood gushed out and spattered onto the floor, glowing an ethereal scarlet in the candlelight.

And the tangle of intestines and the sheen of exposed bone in muscles pulled taut in screaming pain, and the tears and the pus and the sweat and the blood, the blood—

Linhardt retched into the back of his hand, and he pushed back his chair and fell to his knees before the bucket he had left by Caspar's bedside. This was inevitable. 

Linhardt felt like he was pouring the contents of his head out into the bucket as he coughed and threw up, wave after wave of nausea smashing over him like great salty waves in a riptide. His mind felt blank as he shivered and regained his breath. He was so tired. No one had asked if he'd been all right—after seeing all those mangled corpses on the battlefield, and all those glazed over eyes staring straight through him, those slit throats and his friends all in pieces. He was broken. But his scars were not visible, so to the others, he was fine.

Linhardt wiped his mouth with his sleeve, letting out a shuddering groan as he pushed the bucket away and stumbled to his feet. He was fine. Caspar was dying. And he was fine.

Linhardt took a few more trembling breaths before beginning to utter the healing spell once again, his eyes half closed as he sealed up the wound that had broken him. His saliva was sour and his tongue scratched at the roof of his mouth as he spoke. 

He hadn't eaten or drank for nearly twelve hours now. Neither did Caspar. Neither did Hubert, because he was dead. But Linhardt envied the latter two, for at least they got to sleep.

Linhardt softly rubbed his thumb over the pale scar forming on Caspar's side, then sighed shakily and turned his attention to the contusion on the warrior's stomach. He would have it lathered in a cooling salve, so it would not hurt when it was touched. But he would mend the capillaries that burst beneath Caspar's skin first, to aid his healing.

Then, Caspar woke.

Linhardt winced when his old friend took in a faint breath, then looked around in the dimly lit room. Linhardt sensed when Caspar's eyes landed on him.

"...Lin…."

"Shh," Linhardt hushed him, then resumed his simpler spell. The discolored blotch on Caspar's skin turned from bluish purple to flushed red, then to pink.

"Linhardt."

"Shh," Linhardt hushed again. He reached in his bag and found his bottle of cooling salve, then unscrewed the cap, dabbing a bit of the ointment onto a finger and rubbing it gingerly over the bruise.

"Linhardt, I—"

"Shh!" Linhardt hissed, and his eyes stung harder than before, and his vision started to blur.

Caspar shut his mouth, and Linhardt wouldn't look at him. He placed his bottle of salve back in his bag, and he sniffled as he turned to another contusion.

Caspar's voice was soft, no longer husky with hatred, no longer strained from agony. "Hey...are you okay?"

"Please, Caspar," Linhardt sobbed, and the first tear streaked down the side of his face and dribbled onto Caspar's stomach. "Shh…."

"No," Caspar grunted, and he struggled into a seated position. "Tell me you're okay, and then I'll shut up."

"Lie back down, Caspar, I'm still healing you," croaked Linhardt.

"Just say yes or no."

"You're hurt, Caspar, just rest—"

"I don't give a damn about what happened to me! Just let me care about you, Linhardt!" Caspar raised his voice, which he did when he was angry, and Linhardt's breath caught in his throat.

Caspar's blue eyes widened when he realized what he'd done. And he opened his mouth to say something, but Linhardt burst into tears before he could, wailing brokenly into his bloody hands, his shoulders shaking and his chest heaving, and he was a mess, a disgusting, tired, weak, hungry mess.

And Caspar cared about him.

"Linhardt...I'm sorry, Linhardt, I didn't mean to yell," Caspar whispered, and Linhardt felt that roughened, warm palm on his face, and he squeezed it between his own hands, hiccuping and sniffling as he caught his breath. 

"It's...is okay," Linhardt murmured, and he looked up into Caspar's eyes. "Thank you. For saying that."

"Oh." Caspar let his fingers intertwine with Linhardt's. "Of course."

Linhardt stared through heavy eyelids as Caspar ran the side of his thumb up and down the back of Linhardt's hand. 

"Thank _you_," Caspar suddenly added, and Linhardt felt a smile on his face. "You saved my life, Lin."

Linhardt just nodded, and he lowered his head as the candle's feeble flame started to die. Caspar leaned forward from where he sat against his pillow, and he rested his forehead tenderly against Linhardt's. Locks of his lighter colored hair intermingled with Linhardt's longer, dark green locks, slicked and spiked with sweat, and Linhardt took in a little gasp. There was a period of careful, tentative silence, punctuated by Caspar's soft breathing and Linhardt's quieting sniffs, and Linhardt settled into the nook of Caspar's closed eyelid, feeling the roving of the warrior's eye as it flicked this way and that against his cheek.

"You look so awful, Lin...let's get you some water, and something to eat," offered Caspar gently, and Linhardt felt his old friend's other hand brush his earlobe with careful, shy fingertips, then start to stroke his hair. 

"Okay...after I heal you," Linhardt breathed, and his eyes closed peacefully, like a touch-starved cat being pet. Caspar let the hand roaming Linhardt's hair rest on the back of the mage's neck, pulling him a little closer into their touch.

"You already have, Linhardt."

And the closeness he felt to Caspar, brought upon him by a single, delicate moment, like a grain of sand, signaling the beginning of something new, something welcome...it calmed him. For now, the war was over. For now, Caspar was all right. For now, Linhardt was all right, too. 

And he smiled just a little more.


End file.
